25 June 2010 05:19

Although the Portuguese played some scintillating football in the 7-0 demolition of North Korea on Monday, they have also been involved in two of the poorest matches in South Africa - this one and the grim stalemate with Ivory Coast. Although Sven-Goran Eriksson's team beat North Korea 3-0, they missed out on qualifying for the knockout stages by a point.

Carlos Queiroz made four changes to the team which thrashed North Korea, with Duda, Danny, Pepe and Ricardo Costa all starting while Brazil drafted in Julio Baptista and Daniel Alves for the suspended Kaka and injured Elano. Nimar came in for Robinho, who dropped to the substitutes bench.

Daniel Alves has the first shot of the game in the eighth minute, but his long-range effort failed to trouble the impressive Eduardo in the Portugal goal. There were no more clear-cut chances until the half-hour mark when Brazil created the best opportunity of the match. Eduardo was Portugal's hero as he managed to palm Nilmar's shot up on to the woodwork and away from danger.

The referee tried to liven things up by booking seven players, all the yellow cards being flashed in the first 45 minutes, although Juan was lucky to escape being sent off for deliberate handball.

Dunga also opted to substitute Felipe Melo before half-time as there was a real danger that the Juventus players was about to get himself sent off.

The first half had been awful but, if anything, the second 45 minutes were even worse. Cristiano Ronaldo had a couple of free-kicks that failed to trouble Julio Cesar, while the Real Madrid star was also denied by Lucio after he had found some space for himself on the left-hand flank.

Just after the hour mark Portugal created their best opening of the match when Ronaldo's excellent jinking run caused panic in the Brazil defence and, when the ball eventually came to Raul Meireles, his close-range right-footed effort was blocked by Julio Cesar.

In stoppage time, Brazil almost grabbed an unlikely winner when Ramires' shot took a deflection and appeared to be looping over Eduardo until the Portugal goalkeeper somehow managed to tip the ball over the bar.